Endoscopic surgery, when we started at 1992, there were lot of challenges regarding the technology, camera systems, lighting and instruments etc. But today we have seen that endoscopic surgery have reached far beyond what we started. The camera’s have changed to high definition like 4D and 3 dimensional camera’s and the clarity has increased a lot.

Not only the camera’s but the light and the technology have evolved over the years and it has reached a totally different dimension. Today we are 100% sure that endoscopic surgery is coming into every field of medical and surgical treatment. Previously when we started endoscopy surgery mostly it was done for benign disease but today we can see even the malignant diseases like cancers etc.

How do you see the growth of endoscopic surgery in India?

There is a huge scope in endoscopic surgery because we are pretty confirmed that the entire spectrum of open surgeries is going to be slowly wiped off and might stay only in cases of caesarean section and orthopaedics. The patients also deserve this because there is no scope in cutting open the abdomen for so many cases.

As far as India is concerned today we are proud to say that India is one of the foremost in endoscopic surgery with one the country having the largest number of keyhole surgeons.

Can endoscopic surgeries fully replace open surgeries?

There are lot of doctors who are still doing open surgeries, not because they prefer open surgeries or they don’t know endoscopic surgeries but it is mainly because the approach to endoscopic surgeries is still not there. Even today there are not enough people doing endoscopic surgeries. If you see the total number of surgeries done in the country, around 20% of them may be done endoscopically whereas it should actually be 80%.

We are giving a lot of propaganda to endoscopic surgeries for the benefit of our patients as well as teaching lot of doctors in endoscopic surgery across the world. There is a huge lacuna in endoscopic surgery if you see world over which can be and has to be propagated for the benefits of our patients. There is a huge future for endoscopic surgery.

What are the factors that decide a suitable surgery of a particular patient?

Usually in our institute we take open surgery as a complication of keyhole surgery, when there is a problem or we cannot do it through keyhole surgeries only then we convert into open surgeries. This conversion rate maybe 1 in 2000-3000 and by this we can say that we have almost reached 100% non conversion for endoscopic surgeries. So the future is bright and we expect that all surgeries should be done through keyhole.

Tell us about the expansion plans of Sunrise Group of Hospitals?

Our expansion plan is basically to create 80 hospitals across the world. Mainly we are thinking of expanding into the African countries and subcontinents as well as India. We are starting a major cancer institute in Dubai. We are also planning to start lot of centres across the country in India. Mostly we are aiming at the tier 2 cities rather than going into the metros.